


heart and soul

by janie_tangerine



Series: jbweek 2019 [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: (not really IMPLIED but see the A/N for that), (or better implied canon-typical violence), Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Book 3: A Storm of Swords, Brienne is the Best, Canon-Typical Violence, Cersei Fans Please Abstain, Dissociation, Eventual Fluff, F/M, First Kiss, Flowers, Idiots in Love, Implied Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Implied/Referenced Abusive Relationship, Jaime Lannister Has Issues, Jaime/Brienne Appreciation Week 2019, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Sibling Incest, Soul Flower AU, or heart flower au however you call that genre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 05:04:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20829875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: “Why come back?”He looks at her.He could lie and shrug it off with a cruel quip or an insult and so she’d stop asking.Or he could tell her that he woke up on a weirwood after dreaming of giving her a sword that glowed while his own stopped and after dreaming that he handed her his flower, too, because that is what happened —(Cersei threw it back in his face just before his father gave him a sword and both disappeared into the darkness, and when Brienne’s chains around her wrists parted like silk and he conjured that sword for her, he also couldn’t keep it in his hands anymore and so he told her to keep it safe and she had nodded and cradled it against her chest with her free hand, the golden petals looking so fragile against her large, rough palm)— but he’s not so sure he can.He shrugs.“I dreamed of you,” he tells her, and he leaves it at that, and if her eyes widen a bit and her mouth parts as he walks ahead, well, it’s a better look on her than either scorn or disdain.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> HI AND WELCOME TO JBWEEK 2019 <strike>in which I'll try to not be late posting stuff since I'm behind as hell</strike> EVERYONE! :D this was written for day one which was for the spring/new beginnings prompt, and before any other A/N I would like to credit the soul flower/heart flower au idea to a couple fics I read... I think two years ago or so (I've been meaning to write this specific au since then fml) in which the premise is that everyone has a *soul flower* kinda thing that blooms/wilts according to their state of being and that they can give to other people if they'd like - the first fic that came up with it was [heart-flower](https://archiveofourown.org/works/586423) for the teen wolf fandom which I read without understanding anything about the plot as I never watched that show but I thought it was an a+++ idea so I went for it and I thought it would be perfectly suited for them so endless credit to ao3 user hoars for it, but I actually ran into the trope reading another fic that was in turn crediting _heart-flower_ which I absolutely can't find right now - anyway I remember it being around some a couple years ago and I thought it'd fit these two a lot, *and* since the theme is spring and new beginnings... I figured it was a good way to kickstart. ;)
> 
> Now, **actual important A/N please heed it**: _the entire first part of this fic does NOT feature Brienne *and* is heavy on Jaime/Cersei content_, **know it getting into it if you don't care for it** in case you can skip directly on to chapter two - ngl I thought it was enough that I could have tagged it as the secondary ship but as I am honestly tired of getting shit for tagging it when I think it's necessary I stuck it in the secondary tags - just know it's NOT really secondary in part one. Also, secondary A/N: part 2 is asos rehash, so expect references to the amazing times JB had as prisoners - I didn't go heavy on it but just so you know. Other than that don't worry it's the usual fluff ;)
> 
> Other than that: the title is from Bruce Springsteen (no one is surprised), nothing belongs to me, the original heart flower/soul flower idea is from the above fic, now I'll saunter back downwards finishing tomorrow's fic. ;)

1.

Jaime gifts Cersei his soul flower on their seventh nameday.

He hadn’t exactly _planned_ it, but she had been so disappointed that he got a new sword and that Father only had words for him for most of the time, and she had looked so _sad_ when she said that of course _he_ mattered more to everyone else when they were one and the same, and so —

Well, it had come spontaneous. He knows _that_, he knows it’s stupid, but he can’t change how _others_ think. But he can show Cersei that he does value her above all, and what would be better than giving her a literal part of himself?

Cersei brightens as he takes it from his chamber and hands it over.

Jaime’s soul flower is a large, bright golden daffodil, with soft petals and a fragrant smell, and it feels just _right_ to slip it into Cersei’s hands. She places it next to her own, a carnation of the same bright golden color, and she says that they belong together, they’re even the same color.

Jaime looks at them. Sure, they’re the same color, even if not _the same flower_, but what does it matter? He knows she’s right.

He tells her that then it’s hers forever.

She smiles as she says she’ll take care of it.

2.

He doesn’t take it back when they’re put on opposite sides of the castle. Why would he? It looked fine when he looked at it — he doesn’t remember what he and Cersei did that got his lady mother and that maid so riled up, but he remembers glancing at the flower next to Cersei’s. It looked bright and healthy.

He doesn’t ask for it at that point, nor after.

He doesn’t notice that some of the petals wilt a bit, in the following days, and Cersei doesn’t tell him.

3.

After their mother dies, Cersei tells him she hid the flowers somewhere in case someone thinks to take it from her.

Jaime nods in agreement. It’s for the best. He doesn’t ask for it back.

He knows she’s taking care of it.

4.

(On Tyrion’s third nameday, he shows up in Jaime’s room with a large sunflower.

The petals are already a bit wilted and Jaime hates it, but when he tells his brother that it’s a beautiful thing and the colors are lovely — and they are, bright yellow and orange with that dark center — the petals immediately straighten out, the flower turning towards Jaime’s face.

Jaime _is_ utterly delighted to see it. Tyrion quietly says that he feels better about it not being as pretty as his or Cersei’s.

Jaime doesn’t ask him where he got that notion and just tells him that it has to be _his_ flower, not theirs, and there’s nothing bad about it, and that he should only give it to someone he really, really trusts if at all.

Tyrion _looks_ at him, seems about to ask for something, then doesn’t and asks Jaime to keep it for the day so Father doesn’t see it.

Jaime, who has a clue of why their father might not like that Tyrion’s flower is pretty common, not _golden_ and that no other Lannister around has a _sunflower_, says yes, and figures he’ll try to talk to Cersei about it.

It doesn’t work out, but at the end of the day the sunflower is still perky and turned towards Jaime as Tyrion leaves the room.)

5.

“Don’t worry,” Cersei tells him as she drags him on top of her, smiling sweetly up at him, “when you’re in the Kingsguard I’ll bring both flowers to King’s Landing with me.”

She kisses him before he can answer, but oh, wouldn’t it be nice? He’s sure his own flower is thriving as he can feel _himself_ thriving, his blood rushing downwards, as he thinks, _I can be a knight and I can have her_, and wouldn’t it be everything he needs? She’s right, what does he care for a castle? Tyrion can have it, it’s not like he’s not smarter than all of them put together at the age he is. And he can have _her_ and he can have a place in the kings guard with the best of them and Ser Arthur, and — yes.

_Yes_, he thinks.

“Good,” he says, and he kisses her again.

And again.

And again.

6.

Sometimes, when he goes away inside, he pictures Cersei with his soul flower. He pictures her soft hands with long fingers caressing the petals or giving it a little water — soul flowers don’t need to be watered, of course, they thrive or wilt depending on their owner’s health, but some people still do it. He pictures her in one of her green gowns, holding the daffodil to her heart along with her own carnation, touching the petals with her fingers as they most likely wilt, because how could they _not_, not when he has to stand outside Aerys’s door and do nothing as his wife screams, or as he has to stare into flames roasting actual human beings alive, or as he thinks that everything knighthood was supposed to be _is actually not_?

He knows his flower must be wilting. He _knows_ it. But he also knows that Cersei must be caring for it, she must know how the white cloak isn’t what everyone said it would be, she must know —

She must know how he feels like his stomach will hurl every other moment, she must know how he hates it here, she must know how much he misses her, she must know —

She must know, and he wants to see her again so much he could burst with it, he wants her to give him back a flower that’s most likely not as healthy and bright and blooming as it used to be but that still is golden because _she_ cared for it, and so what if every damned time he smells burning human flesh he _leaves_ and sees her golden hair matching the petals of _their_ soul flowers?

No one knows. No one ever will.

Just _her_. And that’s how it should be.

7.

“Oh,” she tells him later, _long_ later, dragging him on top of her when Robert Baratheon’s out for his first hunt as king, “the flower. It’s with me. And it’s always looked the same.”

Jaime stops undressing her.

“It… never wilted?”

“Of course not,” Cersei says, sounding as if it would be ridiculous to assume the contrary. “And come here already, we don’t have all day.”

He doesn’t hear _that_.

He only hears that _his flower hasn’t wilted_, so if it was with her — then maybe that’s how he found the strength to go on all these months, all these _years_, how he found it in himself to do the right thing, and does it matter that she hasn’t asked _why_ he killed Aerys?

It’s not the point. He bends down and kisses her, hoping she feels how grateful he is, and —

_It never wilted_.

He can’t believe it never did.

But maybe if it never did then Aerys didn’t — didn’t ruin him for good, and that’s what he’ll hang on to.

Now, though, he has better things to worry about.

Much, much better.

8.

He asks her, in the following years.

_Of course it hasn’t wilted._

_It never wilts._

_It’s as golden as it was when you gave it to me._

_Same as mine._

He feels a stab in the stomach the first time he’s called _kingslayer_, and then it hurts somewhat less but it _always_ does, and he can only think that if it never wilts then she must really be taking good care of it, and he always feels like a few tears might slip his eyes every time he thinks of that, and so what if it makes standing outside her door and waiting for Robert to fuck off somewhere to have her easier?

He can wait, he knows. He has waited for a long time.

9.

(She assures him that the flower didn’t wilt even after — even after his brother’s failed marriage.

Tyrion’s sunflower _has_ wilted after that. It looked almost dead. Jaime wanted to cry just looking at it.

But if _his own_ hasn’t, then — then maybe there was a point to it.

He tells himself that it’s because it would have ended badly anyway and Tyrion would have suffered for it.

_It hasn’t wilted, I swear_, Cersei tells him, sweetly, before dragging him down for a kiss. _Don’t think about it_.

Jaime doesn’t.)

10.

He asks after each of their — _her_ children are born.

_Of course it’s fine,_ Cersei always says. _Why wouldn’t it be?_

He doesn’t tell her, _because I can’t stomach the idea of never holding them if maybe not once_, and decides that she must be right about it.

What does he even know?

He knows that if _her_ children that aren’t Joffrey spend time with his brother, Tyrion’s sunflower brightens up a bit more.

That’s all right. If _his_ own is fine, then — then it’s better that they spend time with Tyrion instead. He couldn’t endanger them, anyway, Cersei is right.

And if the flower hasn’t wilted, well, then it means he hasn’t done too wrong now.

Right?

Of course it has to be like that.

It couldn’t be any other way.


	2. two

1.

“You know, at _least_ you could avoid letting me die of boredom, wench.”

“Forget it,” Brienne of Tarth tells him for the umpteenth time, and Jaime huffs as he sits down on the ground with his hands tied. _Again_. She got more careful after his cousin’s demise, not that Jaime will cry for him either way.

“It’s a long way to King’s Landing.”

“And what would you want to talk about? I have nothing to discuss with you.”

“Oh, and here we go again. You won’t ever consider changing your mind about my heinous ways, will you?”

“Not even if I see your soul flower in bloom, Lannister,” she mutters.

He laughs at that. “Oh, so _that_ would convince you, maybe? Well, when we’re in King’s Landing, you can just ask my sister, she’ll show you it’s in pristine conditions.”

The wench glares at him. “I will believe it when I see it,” she says. “_Pristine conditions_. There’s nothing I’ve seen of your _soul_ that would suggest that, Kingslayer.”

“What, because yours is that much more pristine? Please,” he laughs, and suddenly she _glares_ at him and —

She opens her pack, wait, _wait a moment, what is she doing_, and then she carefully takes something out of it.

Then she turns towards him, _very_ careful to not come too close.

Oh.

She has her own soul flower cupped in between her large hands, and —

And it’s _also_ a daffodil, but differently from his, this one has a golden core and then the petals are all a pure, warm shade of white. Some are wilted, true, but not that much, and the core of the flower is strong and sturdy and in bloom.

“Mine,” she says, putting it back, “is _very much_ pristine and I take care of it regularly. I cannot say the same for you now, can I?”

He snorts. “Try leaving it with someone you love more than yourself, wench,” he says. “That might work out even better.”

“I trust myself more than I’d trust anyone else with it, _thank you_,” she says, obviously closing the conversation.

Fine then.

She can have her _pristine, white flower_ that no one will ever touch with affection, Jaime decides, and if he can’t seem to forget that _it was the same flower as his, just with different colors,_ well, she does fancy herself a knight.

He did, too, once.

Makes sense, after all. And it means nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

2.

_Good thing my soul flower is with Cersei_, he thinks a long time later, as he stares up at the sky, wondering how those stars can shine down on someone such as himself while his right wrist throbs in pain and he can feel a hand that he doesn’t have anymore and his entire mouth tastes like vomit and he’s pretty sure he smells like literal shit, but he’s beyond noticing it by now, not when he can only smell his godawful rotten hand attached to his bloody neck. At least he won’t have to see it lose petals, because sure as the seven hells _this_ won’t go unnoticed on it.

He desperately tries to picture Cersei’s forehead wrinkling in worry as she cups the petals in her fingers that aren’t surely running through his hair right now, nor touching him, nor —

He throws up again.

He has a feeling going away inside won’t cut it this time.

One of the Bloody Mummers bursts out laughing and tells Brienne to go take care of that. After all, o one wants to smell his vomit too, and maybe she can clean him off too at this point.

Fuck, did he just —

“It’s all right,” she whispers a moment later as she drags him gently to the river, they’ve unbound her hands as usual but they know she won’t try anything if it meant risking his life now —

“It’s not,” he croaks, feeling like he’ll throw up again. She says nothing, takes off his shirt, washes it, undresses him, lowers him down gently into the river, rinse and repeat, puts his damp clothes back on, uses a mostly clean rag to get vomit off his face, and he doesn’t know if he’s making things up or if she’s being _way_ gentler than usual on purpose.

He can’t ask.

He thinks, _at least Cersei won’t ever see me like this_, and if a small part of him wonders if she _would_ have cleaned his shit up while she was at it, he forgets it ever did after he passes out.

3.

He should keep his mouth shut.

He _did_ tell the wench to go away inside and let them have the meat. He _did_ warn her, and she’s obviously not taking the hint, and suddenly he wonders, _will this mean that flower of hers will wilt the moment they do have their way_, and suddenly —

The thought had been unwelcome from before, and gods but he doesn’t want to stand and watch while they — while they — he had enough of that with Rhaella Targaryen and he won’t even have a door to hide behind this time, but he knows she won’t let it happen, and he pictures in his mind those white, pure petals browning and wilting at once the same way he once thought his own would while he stood outside Aerys Targaryen’s door and he thinks of her large, rough fingers cleaning off his face and slipping him some water to drink without the others noticing, and he can’t do nothing, he _can’t_ —

He shouts _sapphires_, and then passes out from the pain the moment Rorge kicks him in the stump, but — it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter.

At least he won’t have to dream of the wench’s screams at night on top of Rhaella Targaryen’s.

4.

He might feel like he’s about to faint as he walks inside the tub Brienne is sitting in.

He _does_ notice that she brought her flower with. It’s still pristine white, even if maybe just slightly wilted in the outer petals. But it shines very, very brightly.

He wonders, _how is my own faring_?

Not very well, he fears, and it maybe angers him a bit, but what can she do about it? Probably nothing, even if she _could_ stop staring at him like he personally offended her by sharing her tub. As if she hasn’t seen him in worse conditions, has she?

He’s telling her about Aerys before he can figure out _why_, though, and as he feels himself faint and her arms close around him

(_gentler than Cersei’s_)

he sees that flower’s whiteness turn almost blinding in the low lightening of the bathhouse, and then he sees nothing more as she calls for help and he wants to tell her that his name is _Jaime_, not Kingslayer, _Jaime_ —

5.

“You were well away,” Brienne whispers as they leave the bear pit, her pink gown stained in blood, the flower held in her hand, still bright white even if stained in blood, too. “Why come back?”

He looks at her.

He could lie and shrug it off with a cruel quip or an insult and so she’d stop asking.

Or he could tell her that he woke up on a weirwood after dreaming of giving her a sword that glowed while his own stopped and after dreaming that he handed her his flower, too, because _that_ is what happened —

(_Cersei threw it back in his face just before his father gave him a sword and both disappeared into the darkness, and when Brienne’s chains around her wrists parted like silk and he conjured that sword for her, he also couldn’t keep it in his hands anymore and so he told her to keep it safe and she had nodded and cradled it against her chest with her free hand, the golden petals looking so fragile against her large, rough palm_)

— but he’s not so sure he can.

He shrugs.

“I dreamed of you,” he tells her, and he leaves it at that, and if her eyes widen a bit and her mouth parts as he walks ahead, well, it’s a better look on her than either scorn or disdain.

She hasn’t looked at him like that since the bath, though.

And she hadn’t looked at him like that for a while, before, but —

No matter. He’ll be back in King’s Landing soon. To Cersei. Where he belongs.

And then he’ll ask her to see his flower and he’ll assess the damage.

He hopes it’s not too much, even if part of him is terrified of facing it.

6.

By the time Cersei comes up to his chambers begging him to _kill Tyrion_, he’s beyond thinking that everything must have gone _wrong_ while he wasn’t here and he’s just wondering why he can’t recognize her anymore. She’s not the person he remembers, and his — his maiming shouldn’t have been an issue if they were one and the same, and now that she’s recoiling from his touch and asking him to do something she _knows _he can’t and won’t ever do, he just — he doesn’t know what he feels except that his stomach is turning itself over and he can’t recognize the Cersei he remembered with the one in front of him, and he thinks of the priceless sword on his table that he cannot use, not without _his right hand_, and he looks into her cold, green eyes —

“"Oh, an angry cripple. How terrifying,” Cersei laughs. "A pity Lord Tywin Lannister never had a son. I could have been the heir he wanted, but I lacked the cock. And speaking of such, best tuck yours away, brother. It looks rather sad and small, hanging from your breeches like that."

He realizes right now that he actually… never refused her before. He never considered that he could, but suddenly he couldn’t, not _here_, not when he wants — he wants to do better by his vows, he wants to do better by himself, and after everything that happened, after Brienne called him _ser_, after she looked at him like he _was_ a true knight, after he saw that _someone_ can uphold those vows, he wants that too, he wants it so badly it hurts, and if she can’t even understand it, then — then what’s even the point?

No.

He’s not — he won’t.

“Fine,” he says, managing to move his cock back into his smallclothes, he’ll worry about lacing them up after, “but I want my flower back then.” If his voice is steadier than he had imagined it would be, better.

“Your flower,” she laughs again.

“Yes,” he keeps on. “Or should I go get it myself?”

“No need,” she says, “I have it with me. But it never was much use even when I was missing you.”

She reaches into what looks like a pocket tucked into her shawl and throws the flower on the table.

Jaime feels his blood run cold when he sees that it’s not just wilted, it’s _completely shriveled up_. The petals are all dead, the ones that are still holding on as at least the entire outer layer has been lost, the stem is a dark brown color, the core — the core is still lively, but it doesn’t look in great conditions. It hits the wood with a dull sound, and Jaime looks from it to her just to find her shrugging.

“How long,” he says, “has it been like this?”

She shrugs again. “It started losing petals after Aerys, but I figured there was no point in making you worry. I guess that after you lost _that_ it lost some more.”

“You _guess_?” He half-shouts. “Cersei, for — I trusted you with my damned _soul_ and you _guessed_?”

“Well, I didn’t look at it _all the time_ now, what did you even expect?”

_If you had given me yours, I’d have looked at it every other moment_, he doesn’t say, feeling tears burn his eyes and hoping that they don’t fall as long as she’s still here.

“Leave,” he says.

“How sad,” she shrugs. “Man up. You aren’t dead yet and neither is _that_, for all the good it might do to anyone.”

Then she leaves, slamming the door behind her.

He breathes in once, twice, thrice, wipes at his eyes, then calls for a guard and tells him to bring up Brienne of Tarth.

If he was halfway sure of what he wanted to ask her _before_, now he’s entirely, absolutely, _truly_ certain of it.

7.

"I have made kings and unmade them. Sansa Stark is my last chance for honor." Jaime smiles thinly. "Besides, kingslayers should band together. Are you ever going to go?”

Brienne looks up at him, her hand wrapping around the sword’s hilt, _Oathkeeper_, he named it — "I will. And I will find the girl and keep her safe. For her lady mother's sake. And for yours,” she bows, and turns towards the door —

And then her eyes fall on his flower.

“Ser — Ser Jaime,” she blurts, obviously not having stopped to _think_ before doing so, “is that — _is that_ —”

“My soul flower,” he shrugs. “Yes, it is. If this is the moment where you tell me you were right about how not _pristine_ it might look, you can keep it for yourself.”

She shakes her head. Then looks up at him, and he feels like she’s seeing through him. What —

“_Try leaving it with someone you love more than yourself_, you told me,” she says, her voice dropping down. “It was — it wasn’t with you. It was —”

“_Yes_,” he hisses, “with my sweet sister. Again, are you quite done?”

She stares at it. Then at him. Then at it again. “I — I apologize if I’m speaking out of turn,” she says, looking back up at him, “but — if you left it with her because she was supposed to look after it and _this_ is how it looks like then you are not doing as well as you want me to assume.”

Shit. Fair enough, she’s _far_ from stupid or dimwitted even if she can be pigheaded and naive, and she _did_ look after his own damned well-being while they were on the road, so she probably — she probably thinks she has a stake in this matter, and thing is, she’s the _only one _who realized it or dared ask, and now she’s looking at the flower as if she’s horrified by its state, and he can’t take the way she’s looking at him, as if she’s _worried_, and he suddenly remembers how in that dream he didn’t hesitate before giving it to _her _—

Suddenly, he can’t look at the flower either. He doesn’t want in his face the proof that Cersei _never gave a damn_ or that Cersei _lied to him_ for years when he asked how it was doing, and —

Fuck it.

He grabs it and throws it Brienne’s way — her other hand catches it at once.

“You know what,” he says, “you can keep it for what it’s worth. If anyone doubts of your intentions and the letter Tommen signed isn’t enough, just show it to them. Now _go_.”

Brienne stares at him, then she nods tentatively, hiding the flower against her chest with her free hand.

“Very well,” she says, “I — I won’t fail you.”

Then she goes and closes the door behind her.

_Well,_ he thinks_, at least someone means that_.

He doubts she can do any worse with it than Cersei, and anyway he doesn’t even want to look at it. It felt like looking into a mirror and hating every single thing his eyes met.

He turns towards the White Book as he hears her steps fading away in the distance.

Time to write his own page, he supposes.

8.

(_I’m sorry_, he tells Tyrion later, as he lets him go. Tyrion’s holding the sunflower in his left hand, and it’s half-dead but still looking up at him and Jaime hates it, he _hates_ it, but —

_I lied and he forced me to and she always loved you and I always hated myself for that, and my flower died too when I lied to you but Cersei had it and she told me it wasn’t_.

_You could have asked_, Tyrion croaks, sounding like he’s about to cry. _I could have told you a long time ago. So what, it died?_

_It’s been dead since Aerys. At least. Well, mostly dead. And — it’s done, I guess. But I don’t — I hated that it happened to yours. Whatever you do now, please — don’t let it die again_.

Tyrion stares at him with those mismatched eyes of his that look like he’s about to cry.

_I should hate you,_ he croaks again, _but you look like you’re punishing yourself all on your own and I guess I cannot. He forced you to. Of course he would_.

_Hurting you was the last thing I ever wanted_, he admits, figuring that there’s no point in hiding it.

_Good to know_, Tyrion says, and then, _every damned book says it’s not dead until _you_ are._

Then he’s gone where Varys said he should have gone and Jaime wipes a few tears from his eyes and goes back upstairs.

He can write whatever he chooses on that white book, can’t he?

Then, for once, he’s going to fucking _choose _for himself.

Even later, he’ll hold vigil over his father’s corpse and he won’t feel a thing that’s not disdain.)

9.

Cersei’s carnation is doing fine, he notices every time he’s in her rooms. Could do better, he supposes, but it’s still bright gold-yellow and the stem is green and it looks like it’s on its way to thriving.

Of course.

Hasn’t she just gotten everything she’s ever wanted?

“What,” Cersei sneers at him, “are you envious?”

“No,” he says, without adding, _you definitely took care of yours, haven’t you_?

“I always could see when you lie, you know,” she smiles over her cup of wine.

Jaime tries to discuss with her the actual serious matters he had come to discuss and he leaves with his cheek stinging and remembering her glass hitting the wall next to his face.

Gods.

He _really_ has been blind for years, hasn’t he?

10.

When she tells him to go to Riverrun, he doesn’t _want_ to.

Still, at least he won’t be here.

He hates that he can’t protect his — his _king_. But —

But he also can’t be near her. He can’t. He _can’t_.

He’ll find some way to take the damned place without bloodshed later, and if as he leaves he hopes that Brienne has found Sansa Stark and hidden her somewhere safe, well, no one can know what he’s thinking now, can they?


	3. three

1.

Brienne locks the door of the inn’s room very carefully before daring to touch the contents of her pack. She cleans Ser Jaime’s sword carefully — _Oathkeeper_, gods, she cannot believe he gave it to _her_ —, changes into night clothing, takes off her boots, and then opens a small, secret pouch she sewed into it before leaving. She never was good at fine stitching, but _that_ she could manage.

She glances at her own flower — it’s doing quite all right, she thinks. The petals aren’t slightly wilted anymore, they haven’t been since Ser Jaime put that sword into her hand, and so she leaves it be.

Ser Jaime’s, though —

She swallows as she takes it out of the pouch, holding it in between her cupped hands. It _really_ does look worse for wear — you couldn’t say what color the petals were originally for how wrinkled and dead-brown they are now, and the only thing that really does look lively about it is the core. For the rest it’s almost dead.

Still —

That core is _not_ dead, same as his honor is not dead, and Brienne is dead certain of it. She’s not quite sure of why he’d give it to _her_ or why he wouldn’t want to keep it for himself, after all most people _do_ keep their flowers for themselves, but he did seem disgusted at its appearance, when he threw it her way.

Admittedly, he trusted her with his honor, by giving her the sword. But the fact that she might have trusted her with a lot more, by giving her _this_ —

She places it on the only small table in the room, finds some water in a pitcher in the corner. She knows watering soul flowers is useless, but she has to do _something_ and so she pours a few drops of water in the middle, her fingers caressing the outer petals ever so slightly.

She leaves it out of the pack, figuring that letting it breathe cannot be a bad idea, and —

She’s not an idiot. She’s seen that it’s _the same flower as hers_.

And she’s seen enough and _heard_ enough to know that once upon a time he wanted the same things she wants now.

Something tells her that’s not how that flower should look.

She closes her eyes and vows to at least make sure it doesn’t get worse, for what she can do, since _he_ is the only one that can get it to bloom again.

2.

A week into her quest and she thinks that the core looks a bit better. She doesn’t know exactly _how_, but it seems — a brighter yellow. There’s some green in the stem, not much but _some_. She likes to think that he’s showing others that he _does_ have honor left in him, but still, she waters it every evening, just a bit, and maybe sometimes she runs her fingers over the bottom, feeling the wrinkled petals, thinking that no, _it’s not how it should look_.

It should look like hers, with fresh blooming petals that are soft to the touch, not like this — like this almost-dead husk.

But the core is really a bright shade of yellow now.

It’s definitely not dead, yet.

Brienne decides to concentrate on _that_ and carefully packs it again after making sure Pod hasn’t woken up yet.

3.

She wakes up feeling like she’ll vomit as the image of Renly’s dead face turning into Ser Jaime’s fades from her eyes — a nightmare. Just a nightmare.

She breathes in and out, in and out, her heart racing, checking that she hasn’t woken Pod up — right. She hasn’t. She hasn’t screamed, then.

She shakes her head, reaching for her pack, knowing it’s ridiculous and unreasonable, but she has to — _she has to see_ —

There it is.

Ser Jaime’s flower is still there. The petals are still wrinkled, but the stem is all green now, and the core is a shade of slightly brighter yellow. All right. Not dead. Just a nightmare.

She brushes her fingertips over the dead petals, then puts it back in her pack, next to hers.

Maybe she smiles a bit at the sight.

Maybe.

4.

Her fingers are shaking as she takes the flower out of her pack, again.

This time, it wasn’t a nightmare.

This time, she thinks wistfully as she drops the usual bit of water inside the core, cupping the flower carefully in her palm, she had dreamed Ser Jaime put her Rainbow Guard’s cloak on her shoulders, and she thinks he had just one hand for it, but it still did not matter, not in her dream.

He looked so handsome, in his white cloak and armor and his golden hair and his smile uncovering those white, perfect teeth of his, and he looked at her with respect, maybe a bit of awe, the way he had when she left with the sword —

She shakes her head.

_I haven’t learned a single thing now, have I_?

She glances down at the flower.

Then she parts her lips in surprise. The stem is all green, the core is bright yellow, and one of the inner petals fell out, but because it’s been tentatively replaced by a new one. And —

Of course it’s a lovely shade of yellow. In the firelight, it looks legitimately _golden_, same as his hair, and it’s peeking from the middle of all that brown, darkened, frail ruin of petals surrounding it, and, unbidden, she smiles as she sees it, because if this is happening it means he’s doing _better_ whatever it is that he’s doing in King’s Landing. Maybe he’s restoring the Kingsguard to a standard, maybe he’s helping out his — his _King_, she doesn’t know, but — but she’s happy for him. She really is.

At least it’s not getting worse, and she doubts _she_ has much to do with it, but still —

She _did_ read love stories, once upon a time. She never told Ser Jaime _that_, and certainly not when he gave her the flower. But in all of those stories, giving your beloved your flower was a sign of the deepest trust, and if you cared well for your beloved’s flower it would help them flourish, and — she doesn’t really even entertain the thought that Ser Jaime might have meant it _like that_, it was more that he didn’t care enough about it at that point, but —

But she wants to think that maybe if she _does_ care for it as best as she can, it might — he might feel it. Somehow.

She shakes her head.

_I really, _really_ haven’t learned a single thing, have I_?

5.

After she kills Timeon and Shagwell, she barely notices that her own petals have drooped a bit.

What she notices, instead, is that Ser Jaime’s daffodil now has _three_ golden petals, growing around the core, and that three of the old ones have definitely fallen. It’s not in bloom, not yet, not fully, but as she runs her fingers over the tips with nails that still have blood underneath that she cannot seem to wash off, she smiles a bit.

Oh.

It really does look beautiful. Not as much as it could be, but — but she can see it, now. She can see how it’s supposed to be.

She imagines it with _all_ of its petals out and open, blooming for good. She smiles a bit wider.

She — she would like to see it. She would like it very much.

6.

Later, when she’s lying on a bed on the Quiet Isle, a long time later, her tears having long dried but feeling exhausted in every sense of the word, she reaches for her pack, not even bothering to glance at her own flower.

It lost a few petals. She had somehow known that, deep in her heart. Same as just after the bet, same as just after Ronnet Connington when it had shriveled up to a dead thing, almost as bad as Ser Jaime’s, but that’s not what she cares about.

What she cares about is _the other one_.

She takes it out of the pouch carefully.

The petals on the outside, still hanging on, are still dead.

The stem is bright green, though, the core is lively and bright, and the smaller petals around it have all regrown. They’re that lovely, lovely shade of golden yellow that she had glimpsed at the first time, and she smiles shakily in spite of herself. A few tears fall down on the dead petals, and of course nothing happens, but that’s quite all right, _nothing_ has to happen. She runs her fingers over the dead petals at the bottom, thinking for the umpteenth time _would he let me weep on his shoulders if I were to drag myself back to King’s Landing having failed_, but now that she sees how the flower is coming back to life… it means _he_ is doing better, and she won’t —

He trusted her with his honor.

He trusted her with his _soul_, even if she doesn’t know what possessed him to do such a thing.

She’s not going to fail him. Not like she failed everyone else.

7.

(_Sometimes, especially at night, Jaime wakes up, but not from one of his usual nightmares, or those dreams where he sees Cersei’s face sneering at him and can only think _she lied to me, she lied to me all along_. It’s usually a dreamless sleep, and he only wakes up because he feels warm, and it feels like a breeze is running through his hair or across his face in a soothing, _comforting_ way._

_He thinks he’s making it up, but it’s — nice when it happens. It feels a bit like Brienne’s hands did as they caught him in the water, he thinks sometimes._

_He wonders how is she faring. He’s hoping she has the strength he prayed for her to receive. He hopes she finds Sansa Stark and brings her far away from King’s Landing. He doesn’t know what she’s doing with his flower, but it can’t be anything too bad, since he’s been feeling lighter since he left King’s Landing. Oh, he hates his mission and he doesn’t know what to make of the situation and sometimes he thinks he should just go back, depose his sister and make sure Tommen is rightfully counseled, regardless of telling him that he is — that he is —_

_He turns around in his bed, that warm breeze brushing against his cheeks._

_Tomorrow he’ll get to Riverrun and maybe he’ll put an end to this farce._)

8.

No one looks inside Brienne’s pack as she’s brought to face what used to be Catelyn Stark, once upon a time.

No one takes care of opening it, least of all Brienne herself.

If someone had, they would have noticed two things.

The first thing, would have been Brienne’s white daffodil’s remaining petals quickly blackening, shriveling, _falling_, until only a couple remained attached to a darkening stem — some of them had already fallen before, when Biter had taken off half of her cheek, but Brienne herself hadn’t dared looking at it.

The second —

The moment Brienne of Tarth says _I will not make that choice_, the few darkened petals remaining in Jaime’s flower fall down and new ones immediately spring forward, _fast_, in full bloom, shining golden as new.

Somewhere else in the Riverlands, Jaime crumples his sister’s letter and says, _put this in the fire_.

9.

Brienne hasn’t said a word since they reached the inn.

Her sword is dripping blood — Lady Stoneheart’s, she thinks, trying not to break out in the hysterical laughter that has been building up her throat since she realized what she had to do, lest Ser Jaime thinks her a madwoman.

It’s already a miracle that he’s with her and hasn’t left her, Pod and Hyle the moment they fled the camp after Brienne killed the woman that used to be her liege lady because he couldn’t let them die but also couldn’t let Jaime die, she couldn’t, she _wouldn’t_ —

“You know,” he tells her, locking the door, there were just two free rooms and he volunteered to share with her and she couldn’t even _talk_ and it’s not like Pod or Hyle could say no, “if you think I’m bearing you ill will for — for leading me there when you _killed_ her to save my hide, I am not.”

“You should,” she whispers, unable to look at him in the eyes. “You _should_. You were right,” she keeps on.

“About what?”

“About vows.” She’s still not looking at him. She feels unworthy of holding Oathkeeper still. She should give it back. She _should_. She _will_ — “They’re too many. They’re hard to weigh. And — I killed her, gods, I _had to_ —”

“Brienne —”

One day, she’d have relished hearing him say her name so softly. Now she can’t bear to even _look_ at him. “I _had_ to, and I can’t regret it, she was killing people, she wasn’t herself anymore, and I couldn’t let her kill _you_, but — I am sorry I ever judged you when it came to Aerys, ser.”

“Surely _you_ are not the person I was expecting that from,” he says, and it was maybe supposed to be funny but it’s _not_, and then she realizes —

“Ser, I have something of yours,” she starts, grabbing her pack, and _thank the Seven they didn’t open it_, “and I do not think I am — that I should have it any longer.”

“Brienne —” He starts again, but she shakes her head and he says nothing, and then she finds the pouch, barely looking at her poor excuse of a flower, which is _worse_ off than it was after Connington, not that she’s surprised, and finds his own. She takes it out carefully, making sure to not jostle it or to risk ripping the petals, and tries to gather the courage to look at him in the eyes. He deserves at least that.

She finds them looking at her in worry.

She tries to not mind it.

“Ser Jaime, you — you gave this to me and I was more honored that you would do such a thing than I was when you gave me the sword. But — I really think you should have it back. And — I am glad that you are better, now. I truly am.”

She moves her palms forward, the golden, blooming daffodil nestled in between them.

She looks down at it because she can’t bear to look at him any longer.

But then he doesn’t reach for it and so she looks back up again, and —

And he’s staring down at it with his mouth half-open, looking down at it in wonder, and his left hand is shaking wildly, not daring to reach for it.

“Ser Jaime…?” She asks, tentatively.

“Gods,” he whispers, “how did you do it?”

10.

She looks back at him as if she doesn’t get the question.

“I — I didn’t do anything,” Brienne says, her hands shaking, but Jaime isn’t really believing it for one second.

“No,” he says, shaking his head, “you _must_ have. I gave it to you because I couldn’t stand to look at what Aerys and — and everything else had turned me into, and I couldn’t stand to look at it when I gave it to Cersei thinking she’d keep it safe and instead she let it _die_ and never told me. And I figured that if you kept me on my feet on the way to King’s Landing, better with you than with me.” It’s not all the truth. It’s really _not_, he has realized it now, but he’s not sure he has the words to tell her. “And now it’s — it was never like this. It was _never_ this lively. What did you do?”

She shakes her head again, looking like she’s about to cry. “Ser, I did nothing that wasn’t caring for it. And you shouldn’t — you should be _angry_, you should hate me, I lied to you in the least honorable way, _why_ aren’t you?” She sounds like she genuinely _can’t_ understand it, and —

He shakes his head, again, taking the flower from her. Gods, it’s warm and soft and in bloom, and —

“It has nothing to do with me anyway,” she says. “This is all you. I knew you — you could be a better man than you thought you were. Whatever you did after I left, that’s all you, ser. I —”

“Brienne,” he interrupts her, “that’s a load of horseshit and we both know it. Maybe _some_ of it is true, I feel a lot better than I did, well, before, but you know _that_ is valid just when _you_ keep your own flower. I — I admit I hadn’t realized the implications, but all those stories say that if you give it to someone else and they care for it, it _shows_. You aren’t telling me something, are you?” There is no way that she meant him any harm whatsoever if _his_ flower is looking so well-off.

“It’s not important,” she says, and looks back down again, and _hells_ she’s taller than he is but right now she looks smaller and she’s trying to hide that scar on her cheek without many results, and —

“Brienne, let me see yours.”

At _that_, all the blood on her face drains from it. “Ser —”

“Brienne, _let me see yours_. If you think you owe me apologies, you can start with that.”

Her shoulders slump down.

She reaches down inside the pack and produces —

He had expected that blinding white on a daffodil just like his own.

Instead, he gets a shriveled, almost dead flower, as bad off as his own was, and wait, this happened _in the few months they were apart_, gods, _gods_, and he sent her on that quest and now that flower looks shriveled up and wilted and she looks like it’s tearing her apart to even have him see it, and —

“Seven hells,” he whispers, dropping next to her, “what did I do?”

At _that_, she finally stops looking miserable for one second as she drops down sitting on the bed. “You did nothing,” she says. “Why?”

“Fuck that,” he snaps. “_I_ sent you on that quest alone and it was looking _good_ when you left, and I know that and you know that. And if what happened until now turned it like this — Brienne, for — _my_ own was as bad off as yours but it took _years_ for it to get that bad. I need you to _tell_ me, or —”

“_You_ did nothing,” she blurts, “you just trusted me with something I always wished for and I failed you the way I failed _her_ and Renly, that’s what happened!”

“You haven’t —”

“I haven’t found Sansa Stark at all, I might have killed two of the Bloody Mummers but I did it dishonorably and I barely even _cared _when I realized it, I thought of coming back saying I failed more than once but I couldn’t because failing _you_ felt like a worse prospect than dying, I couldn’t even keep safe the two people who came with me, I tried to save innocent children and I didn’t even do it by myself and now I’m even uglier than I used to be before, and then I — I should have just let her hang me and I _would_ have let her because I couldn’t do what she asked me to, but then I couldn’t let _them_ die because I couldn’t ever kill _you_, and so I had to bring you there at all and I _failed_, that’s what —” She stops, tears falling down her face, her cheeks reddening even further, and gods but he hadn’t _ever_ seen her cry, not even on the road to King’s Landing, and he can’t — he’s about to reach for her when he realizes _what she’s just said_.

“You couldn’t ever kill _me_?” He asks.

She shakes her head, trying to wipe tears from her face but unable to stop crying —

“She said I could prove that I was loyal to her by killing you or I could hang,” she sobs, “and I said I wouldn’t choose. I _couldn’t_.”

For a moment, he feels like the entire world has stopped moving.

She —

She just said —

“Brienne, you haven’t just said that you’d have rather _died_ than —”

“Yes,” she says, her voice thinning, still in between sobs, but she doesn’t even think about it for a moment. “I couldn’t. _I couldn’t_. I’m just sorry I had to bring you there to make them think I would, but I knew I would kill her before killing _you_ the moment I left their camp. I’m so sorry —”

He shakes his head, sitting down next to her, his hand going under her chin, lifting it up so he can look at her, and she tries not to but then she gives up, her blue eyes staring into his, her hair hanging around her head in dire need of brushing and her cheeks looking blotted and red as her lip shakes, and maybe others would say she looks uglier than usual right now, but —

_But_ —

“Brienne, for — do you know when was the last time _anyone_ in Westeros said they would die rather than cause _my_ own death?”

She shakes her head. He laughs, bitterly.

“Never.”

“… _Never_? Surely your sister —”

“_Please_,” Jaime snorts, and that comes out bitter and sad and dripping all the venom he tried to keep for himself since he left King’s Landing, because _who would he even tell_, but he can’t care less. “She always said we would die together, but I think it was more about how _I_ should have died with her rather than the contrary. She wouldn’t — she wouldn’t have done that. She wouldn’t have meant that if she ever told me such a thing.”

Brienne keeps on looking at him, shaking her head slightly, and then another sob leaves her throat and he just — he puts an arm around her and brings her head to his shoulder thinking that it’s the least he can do for her now, and her hands grip at his shoulders as she weeps against the white of his shirt, and he dares run a hand through her hair before his eyes fall on her daffodil, which had fallen on the ground.

And he sees at once that the smaller petals around the yellow core _move_.

She tries to move away, obviously embarrassed, but he holds on to her tighter and she starts crying again —

And those dead petals fall down just for some orange ones to peek from underneath, new and fragile and _bright_ —

_Wait a moment_.

Oh.

_Oh_.

He’s an idiot.

He’s a colossal,_ complete_ idiot, and he should have realized it before because he _would_ have died for Cersei in a heartbeat but he also would have died _for her_, because didn’t he jump into that bear pit once, and —

When her crying slows down and she moves back, he reaches out with his left hand, wiping her cheek, scar and all, and then glances down at her flower —

The smaller petals have all grown again.

Gods.

Brienne looks down at it, too, and her eyes widen again, red as they are, and Jaime can’t help it — he reaches down, takes it with his left hand, and Brienne doesn’t stop him. He lost the golden hand running from Stoneheart, so he doesn’t have it anymore, but he still — he brushes the dead petals with his stump, and Brienne doesn’t tell him not to, just as his fingertips cup the base, and suddenly the stem turns _greener_, and the inside of the flower turns a brighter orange.

“_You_ haven’t done anything, have you?” He asks, keeping his tone light — he doesn’t need her to think _he_ means it.

She shakes her head. “I don’t — I don’t understand — the last time it dried up, it was — it took me months to —”

“Let me guess,” he says, “it has something to do with your second betrothed?”

She gasps. “How would _you_ know —”

“Ronnet Connington was in my army,” he explains, keeping the flower in his hands. It’s warm. And if only the dead petals underneath would _fall_… “He asked me if it was true that you fought a bear in Harrenhal, then told me the enchanting story of the one time he met you.”

“Oh,” she says, avoiding his stare.

“I liked it so much that I broke three of his teeth after,” he keeps on.

“You did _what_?”

“Just punched him with the golden hand,” he shrugs. “It’s bothersome and heavy, but it was also the one time it wasn’t useless.”

Two of the dead petals fall down. A few white ones peek from underneath. “Ah, here they are,” he grins, thinking that this is just confirming _all_ of his assumptions. “Anyway, I was _particularly_ bothered by that story. Very much so.”

“Ser —”

“Because _no one_ should behave like that in the first place, but I was even more bothered that he would speak of _you _that way. And I had not realized exactly _why_ I was bothered, but I think I know now.”

“You — you do?”

He nods, then places her flower gently next to his.

“Oh, I think I _really_ do. Now, two things. First, since you so gallantly saved me from certain death _and_ you were willing to _die_ rather than kill me, I think you earned _this_.” He leans forward, his lips touching her scarred cheek, and not just brushing — he gives her a kiss that’s not _hard_ but isn’t even the ghost of one, and she gasps as he moves away, and then he looks at their flowers.

Brienne’s has just grown another petal. There’s a dead one stubbornly clinging on and the others aren’t _fully_ in bloom yet, but still —

“I’m not surprised now,” he grins. “So, now that we established _that_ —”

“We haven’t —”

“Brienne?” He interrupts, and she immediately closes her mouth. “I might have just realized _now_, but I would be honored to kiss you _properly_, and something tells me that it’s what _you_ want, too, so unless you _don’t_ —”

“Ser, don’t — I don’t need japes. Not from _you_ of everyone, please —”

Oh, _fuck that_.

She sounds like she’ll cry and he can’t _hear_ it, and so he moves forward and kisses her, _for real_, and for a moment she’s still as a salt statue, but then when he presses on and she realized he’s _not_ joking, she tentatively kisses him back, her lips moving against his, and _oh_ but they’re soft, he thinks, soft and warm, and as he parts his own, her tongue tentatively touches his — he reaches up, his hand cupping her face, and he gasps when her fingers wrap around his stump, and he hates that he can taste salt on her skin but she’s definitely not crying anymore, and when he moves back without taking away his hand she’s smiling slightly and her eyes are so bright with happiness that he thinks he might faint from it, and how did he ever think she was _ugly_, right now she looks — she looks _right_, she does —

She gasps again.

He turns to look at their flowers.

Hers has completely regrown the petals.

Now they’re both in bloom, next to each other, pretty much the same except for the color — her new petals are still white while his own are golden and both stems are bright green.

“_You haven’t done anything_, now?” He grins, and she tentatively grins back, reaching for her own flower as he picks his own up.

“I — well. Sometimes I watered it. I checked on it every day. I might have — never mind. It’s embarrassing.”

“I think,” he says, “that maybe you should just show me.” He hands it over to her, and she looks back at him —

Then hands _her own_ over to him. “Just if you take this in return,” she says, and he does, his throat going dry as she swaps their flowers, cupping his with a lot more carefulness, and then she brings it up higher, just under her heart, her left hand’s fingers caressing the petals with such intent that for a moment he’s taken aback, and then —

Oh.

He used to imagine that Cersei might do that, back in the day, but —

But _she_ had instead, hadn’t she, and when she most likely thought he would never want her back —

“You know what,” he says, “I didn’t really want to come here, but now I don’t really want to go back to King’s Landing. What if I want to play my part in this _quest_ too and come with you to find Sansa Stark… if you keep that for me, meanwhile?”

She swallows, her eyes staring into his, the sweet smile on her lips brightening up her entire face. “Gladly,” she says, “but only if you hold on to _that_ for me, too.”

Oh.

_Oh_.

He nods, bringing her flower to his chest with his left hand, feeling overwhelmed for a moment, but she looks equally overwhelmed, so he supposes that’s not too bad.

“I think I will be glad to,” he says. “Also, drop that _ser_. Honestly.”

She laughs at that, slightly, and gods but _that_ lights her face up again and he wants to kiss her again —

“All right,” she says, “Jaime,” and then she’s moving forward, and _oh_, of course — her hand wraps around his right wrist again as their lips meet, and her flower is soft and warm against his palm, and she’s given it to _him_ without even blinking —

He smiles into the kiss, knowing he _will_ take care of it, same as he knows in his bones that he can trust her with his own, and maybe they should think of where to go and maybe he should consider his status because he’s _not_ going to give her up now and he can’t be wearing a white cloak at the same time, but —

He’ll think about it later. For now he just wants to kiss her again and again and so he does as she kisses him back with more and more enthusiasm, and —

Maybe he had no idea of what he was doing when he gave it to her first.

But he’s pretty damn sure he won’t be asking back for it anytime soon, and he’ll make sure she won’t want to ask for hers back, either.

End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone interested: daffodils/jonquils symbolize [chivalry and a lot of other things pertaining to both of them](https://www.flowershopnetwork.com/blog/flower-dictionary/daffodil/), yellow carnations have generally negative meanings [among which disappointment, rejection and contempt](https://www.auntyflo.com/flower-dictionary/yellow-carnation), sunflowers are [a symbol of power but also long life, nourishment, admiration and seeking out strength](https://www.flowermeaning.com/sunflower-meaning/).


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